United in Patriarchy? A View from across the (Aegean) Pond

Abstract

On December 21, 2021, the Turkish Archaeologists’ Association (Arkeologlar Derneği), the largest NGO for archaeology in Turkey and currently representing more than 200 members, shared a stock image of a female archaeologist. Wearing a pith helmet and a white shirt and sitting by a table with an old-fashioned camera, a laptop, and a notebook, she was doing desk work sitting under an umbrella in what seemed to be an archaeological site under a blazing sun. On this visual, and as a caption below, Arkeologlar Derneği added the following text: “Turkey’s female archaeologists continue to contribute to our profession without stopping. Godspeed . . .” (original text in Turkish, my translation). The colonial associations of the clothing of the woman, her doing desk work rather than actively engaging with the site, and the caption suggesting that archaeology by nature is a male profession in which women “participate” attracted sudden disagreement and outrage. The NGO initially defended itself by saying the photo was a mere representation and the protestors were being cynical. They closed the post to comments, and they disabled their social media accounts from being mentioned by other users. The public outcry from mainly female archaeologists did not cease, and on December 23, 2021, Arkeologlar Derneği removed the post with a public apology citing how sad they were about the negative feedback they received on a post they shared with the best of intentions.This brief two-day synopsis from Turkey is a fitting start as it highlights three important points that I wish to analyze further in my response1 to Erny and Godsey’s article, which puts forth a series of critical problems and questions on gender and archaeological fieldwork in the Mediterranean. As with the article by Michael Loy that sparked this exchange in the first place, Erny and Godsey’s examples also come mainly from Greece. In my response, my first aim will be to provide a view from Turkey to demonstrate that the issues the authors bring up are by no means endemic to the western side of the Aegean. Second, I will seek to complicate the issues around directing a field project and demonstrate why limiting our inquiries to project directors without considering the processes by which they become permit holders in the first place is constricting our view. Third, I will discuss what I call the “field-fetish,” a privileging of active fieldwork as the major mode of engaging with the archaeological record, thereby degrading the much more time consuming and expertise-requiring aftermath of artifact analysis to a secondary position. My point here aligns with Erny and Godsey’s critique of an emphasis on artifact collection at the expense of data interpretation.The gender imbalance in survey directorship in Greece demonstrated by Erny and Godsey prompted me to scrutinize the data from Turkey. Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s General Directorate of Cultural Assets and Museums (Kültür Varlıkları ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlüğü) oversees all of the permits assigned to archaeological fieldwork, including excavation (subdivided into “foreign” and “Turkish” categories), survey (likewise “foreign” and “Turkish”), rescue excavations and surveys undertaken in various capacities (by museums, by local or international academic personnel before dam or highway construction), and underwater research. Annual lists for each category containing every single permit issued since 2006 can be accessed publicly (T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı 2022). Excluding the rescue missions, which tend to be driven by urgent needs and be requested by the state from museums or scholars (and not the other way around), and underwater research, as it is still a nascent subfield in Turkey, I chronicled the gender of the permit holders2 for the excavation and survey permits issued in 2006 and in 2019 to be able to chart change.3 Because of the high number of permits issued annually and my time limitations, I could not chart every year in between, but the results still reveal interesting patterns.I would like to highlight four points with respect to an analysis of permits issued in 2006 and 2019 (Fig. 1). The first is the crushing dominance of male directors across the board. The highest female representation was achieved in survey permits in 2019, but even this 32.4% is less than half of the 67.6% of the permits issued to male directors in the same year. An unfortunate caveat of the data here is my inability to see the application pools, and to comment on the acceptance rates of projects proposed by female and male directors. Second is the overall similarity of these results to what Erny and Godsey display for Greece, suggesting that we might be looking at shared practices across the Aegean (and possibly around the Mediterranean). Third, as Erny and Godsey also indicated, excavation and survey need to be evaluated together, as they demonstrate similar patterns in gender inequality. In 2019, a 67.6% male directorship in survey was paralleled by a 68.6% male direction in excavations. Apart from this similarity in representation, survey and excavation are still directly related in Turkey, with many surveys undertaken with the specific aim of deciding on a site to excavate, or excavations engendering site-centered regional survey to gather data on the larger context. In the latter, the hierarchies and labor division of the parent excavation tend to be replicated in the survey.Finally, the numbers and ratios from 2006 and 2019 permits might suggest an optimistic and upward trend in increasing female directorship in excavations, and especially surveys, which increased from 22.7% female directorship in 2006 to 32.4% in 2019. This corresponds to 15 more female (29 in 2006, 44 in 2019) and 7 fewer male directors (99 in 2006, 92 in 2019). Whether this is related to increased applications from female scholars or to increased acceptance rates of the projects they proposed remains unclear. While I applaud any such increase, a more detailed analysis of the Turkish case below demonstrates the need to incorporate intersectionality into any discussion of gender and archaeological fieldwork.Fieldwork in both Greece and Turkey operates under the laws of nation states, and archaeology and the permission to undertake it have always been intertwined with claims and politics of nationality (see Atakuman 2008 and Hamilakis 2007). In this context, looking at gender irrelevant of nationality is impossible, as national politics can override or support gender discrimination. When we break down the dataset presented above according to gender and nationality, we see an overall decline in foreign permits (Fig. 2). Regardless of the decline in numbers, the dramatic male dominance of foreign surveys in Turkey stayed consistent (84.4% male directorship in 2006 and 83.3% in 2019). By 2019, however, this translates to only one female foreign director (Dr. Anja Slawisch directing the Panormos Survey in the Milesian peninsula). When we look at excavations, we see a reversed pattern, with the 79.5% male directorship in foreign excavations declining to an admittedly still crushing 68.8% in 2019. Overall, foreign female archaeologists seem to be the most underrepresented group among fieldwork directors.Erny and Godsey’s questions of what we exclude from the narrative when we focus on project directors at the expense of the team merit further discussion here. While they approached the topic from the perspective of who is allowed to publish specific sections of a field project, the decision-making processes of who gets to be the permit applicant goes unquestioned. Here I’ll tackle this issue from the politics of choosing “the director,” who is to be the primary name on the survey permit.In Turkey, survey permits can only be issued in the name of one individual, and “co-director” or “assistant director” are not accepted as valid legal designations, while some projects use them on their websites.4 Here, then, collaborative projects need to make a choice as to who will apply to be the primary permit holder. Within a climate of increasing requirements from foreign projects, holding Turkish citizenship and being employed in a Turkish institution might be a more important factor for deciding the permit applicant in a collaboration than gender. This is not to say that survey directorship is not laden with gender inequality. On the contrary, thinking about the steps needed to acquire and maintain archaeological survey permits introduces many other stages in which gender inequality, (self-)discrimination and the internalized sexism of female archaeologists play out.If we now focus on Turkish survey projects and the visible rise in female directorship between 2006 and 2019 (25.0% in 2006; 33.1% in 2019), this seemingly positive development also obscures many layers of internalized and external discrimination against female archaeologists. The law governing archaeological fieldwork in Turkey (T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Teftiş Kurulu Başkanlığı 2020) explicitly puts forward three prerequisites for applying for new excavation permits: holding an undergraduate degree in archaeology (Item 4b), holding the academic title of associate professor (if foreign) or doctor with scientific publications (if Turkish) with at least five years of active excavation experience (Item 4ç), and having completed a survey in the proposed area (4d).5 For directing surveys, the applicant needs to hold a PhD (area unspecified, Item 5a), have at least four years of field experience (Item 5c), and has to demonstrate a close association between the proposed research topic and her/his area of expertise (Item 5i and 5j). Here, the legal framework clearly prioritizes excavation as a more important mode of fieldwork and situates survey as a milestone leading to it. Thus, while the rise in female directorship in survey is encouraging, this needs to be evaluated together with a decrease in female leadership in excavations. Potential reasons for this include the “leaky pipeline” up the academic ladder also cited by Erny and Godsey, the exclusion of interdisciplinary scholars from directing excavations, and the long-term commitments required for excavations annually and over multiple years, which pose strict challenges for maintaining a work-life balance.Exploring gender and archaeology from an intersectional perspective, then, reveals that running the numbers through gender only is not enough. We need to consider nationality, educational background, and aspects of personal life such as primary care responsibilities that tend to fall more dominantly on female professionals. Such a detailed study, of course, necessitates a research methodology involving focused interviews and questionnaires undertaken with field archaeologists of multiple backgrounds and falls beyond the limits of my response here.The final point I’d like to highlight in my review is what I call the “field-fetish,” an obsession with field survey and land coverage as the most valuable element in archaeological studies. Perhaps even more so than other archaeological fieldwork, pedestrian survey has its roots in military excursions.6 Many of us walk transects, almost in (an admittedly loose) military formation, in unison. We climb to the higher points of the landscape to have better visibility of the land around us. We use satellite images, even those from decommissioned and declassified spy missions. Having adopted such tools of canvassing, conquest, surveillance, and colonialism, archaeology has unfortunately also inherited a toxic masculinity that manifests itself with large numbers of sexual assault cases directed almost exclusively at female team members (see, most recently, Çilingiroğlu 2022 demonstrating that 42% of archaeology students in Turkey report having endured sexual harassment and assault in the field while the actual numbers must be unfortunately even higher), assumed gender roles reflecting on labor division (with especially junior female colleagues asked to do more house-keeping), and an overall masculine tone in survey publications. Telling indices of this last point include implicit suggestions of physical prowess through emphasis on the size of the entire survey area and sometimes the part covered on foot, as well as the areas of the ancient settlements discovered during fieldwork.7This field-fetish comes at the expense of degrading material analysis and publication to a secondary position. As demonstrated by Erny and Godsey, these are spheres of knowledge production that female professionals (unsurprisingly) take greater part in. However, the dominant practices of field survey in the eastern Mediterranean also operate at the expense of fostering equality and inclusion during fieldwork itself—of taking time in the field to train our teams, of stopping for as many moments as necessary to explain to a student why we are doing what we are doing, and of pausing to listen to their questions and ideas.So, where do we go from here? We, directors of field projects, owe it to future generations of archaeologists to foster an inclusive and diverse atmosphere in the field and to not tolerate gender discrimination, sexual harassment, or mobbing of any kind. We need to lead with compassion and provide a safe environment in which our team members can express themselves, can be themselves. Otherwise, we fail our crews when we use them as almost automated data collectors without ideas of their own. We fail our younger colleagues when we rigidly insist on our own research questions. We fail ourselves when we enable or ignore sexual harassment and mobbing under our watch. And we fail past societies when the dominant archaeological narratives produced primarily by senior, cisgender, white male archaeologists betray the diversity and richness of ancient communities.